Mentioning Criminal History in Interview

[theldron]

So I was curious if anyone has had experience with mentioning their criminal history in their first interview? I plan on fully disclosing it on the security paperwork but I wanted to know if its the best plan to talk about it during the actual interview? Any help would be appreciated.

[UncaBuffalo]

So I was curious if anyone has had experience with mentioning their criminal history in their first interview? I plan on fully disclosing it on the security paperwork but I wanted to know if its the best plan to talk about it during the actual interview? Any help would be appreciated.

It's never been a question on any interview I've taken.  My guess is that most nuclear supervisors assume that such issues will be taken care of by your UA background check.

[theldron]

Yea its definitely never been asked in the interview but I've been told I should volunteer the information during an interview so that its not a surprise when the background check comes back. Now admittedly the ones saying this are not within the Nuclear world, which is why I thought I would ask here.

[UncaBuffalo]

Yea its definitely never been asked in the interview but I've been told I should volunteer the information during an interview so that its not a surprise when the background check comes back. Now admittedly the ones saying this are not within the Nuclear world, which is why I thought I would ask here.

If you have a specific question about whether you will be able to get Unescorted Access (UA) in a nuclear plant, then PM Graphic.  He's our expert on all things security-related and will be able to give you a good idea as to whether you have enough of a chance of getting UA to make it worth your (and the interviewers') time.

Good luck. 

[Graphic]

I'm no interview expert but I don't think I would mention any criminal history in an interview. That is something for the background company and access authorization to sort out. If you have an extensive criminal history and don't really think you have a chance of getting in then I may mention it. For me it would depend more on what position I was interviewing for and also how much criminal history I knew I had. I guess to me it would just be curteous to mention it simply because a company may waste a lot of money on flying you in for an interview possibly, hotel etc.. only for you to not be able to pass a background screening.

There are a lot of recruiters who hire people before the background screening is done and then end up paying in the long run because of the fact that when the applicant reports to work and fills out the paperwork he/she may not meet the requirements. Some places are 'smarter' than others and do all of this before they get someone to report.

As buffalo said if you have any questions regarding your background you can PM me if you'd like an I'll try to give you more advice.

Good luck!

[93-383]

I'm a non nuclear hiring manger so take this for what its worth.

I would not volunteer information regarding criminal history.

Interviews are one of many phases of a hiring process. The purpose the interview is for you to sell yourself to the interviewer. The interviewer is trying to find out if you are a good candidate for the opening. In other words he is looking for a solution to a problem.... not more problems.

It is difficult to ask questions regarding criminal history without getting too close to some of the dreaded "illegal" interview questions. As such it is difficult to have a frank straight forward conversation about things like this in an interview.

[Starkist]

In some states, its illegal for interviewers to ask about criminal history, so depending on your state this may not even be a viable question. Its up to the state, of course, so check it out.

[Higgs]

Yea its definitely never been asked in the interview but I've been told I should volunteer the information during an interview so that its not a surprise when the background check comes back. Now admittedly the ones saying this are not within the Nuclear world, which is why I thought I would ask here.

No, it won't come up in the interview and you shouldn't volunteer it. However, it will come up in the background check and that's when you should be forthcoming. There is a time and place for everything, and the interview isn't the time nor place to confess your sins.

Justin

[rlbinc]

It shortens the discovery process.
Best for all concerned.

[theldron]

Thanks for the great answers guys, I was getting a bunch of conflicting answers from outside the nuclear word saying that I should dump everything in the first interview and I felt very up in the air about it. Went to my first interview and mentioned it all, didn't get hired and thought I would ask around before the 2nd plant. Its not that I have an extensive criminal history, only 1 conviction but also an arrest for something stupid that was dismissed. I never even CONSIDERED lying about it as I would much rather get a no based on the truth, than a yes based on a lie. Once again thank you for the help

[Content1]

So I was curious if anyone has had experience with mentioning their criminal history in their first interview? I plan on fully disclosing it on the security paperwork but I wanted to know if its the best plan to talk about it during the actual interview? Any help would be appreciated.

I think the bigger question is the redemption factor.  If you make a mistake in judgment it the depends how bad it was and in what area that is revelant to the job.  Drunk driving is an example.  It is bad, but seems something that is eventually forgivable in our society.  More serious crimes put in question doing any job, as it will always show up in a security search and the famous "WHY" will be asked.

[MacGyver]

So I was curious if anyone has had experience with mentioning their criminal history in their first interview? I plan on fully disclosing it on the security paperwork but I wanted to know if its the best plan to talk about it during the actual interview? Any help would be appreciated.

From the NW RSS

http://stream.marketwatch.com/story/markets/SS-4-4/SS-4-21600/

February 14, 2013, 7:21 p.m. ET

Perform Criminal Background Checks at Your Peril
A federal policy intended to help minorities is likely to have the opposite effect.
By JAMES BOVARD

Should it be a federal crime for businesses to refuse to hire ex-convicts? Yes, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which recently released 20,000 convoluted words of regulatory "guidance" to direct businesses to hire more felons and other ex-offenders.

In the late 1970s, the EEOC began stretching Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to sue businesses for practically any hiring practice that adversely affected minorities. In 1989, the agency sued Carolina Freight Carrier Corp. of Hollywood, Fla., for refusing to hire as a truck driver a Hispanic man who had multiple arrests and had served 18 months in prison for larceny. The EEOC argued that the only legitimate qualification for the job was the ability to operate a tractor trailer.

U.S. District Judge Jose Alejandro Gonzalez Jr., in ruling against the agency, said: "EEOC's position that minorities should be held to lower standards is an insult to millions of honest Hispanics. Obviously a rule refusing honest employment to convicted applicants is going to have a disparate impact upon thieves."

The EEOC ignored that judicial thrashing and pressed on. Last April, the agency unveiled its "Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions," declaring that "criminal record exclusions have a disparate impact based on race and national origin."

Though blacks make up only 13% of the U.S. population, more blacks were arrested nationwide for robbery, murder and manslaughter in 2009 than whites, according to the FBI. The imprisonment rate for black men "was nearly 7 times higher than White men and almost 3 times higher than Hispanic men," notes the EEOC. These statistical disparities inspired the EEOC to rewrite the corporate hiring handbook to level the playing field between "protected groups" and the rest of the workforce.

Most businesses perform criminal background checks on job applicants, but the EEOC guidance frowns on such checks and creates new legal tripwires that could spark federal lawsuits. One EEOC commissioner who opposed the new policy, Constance Barker, warned in April that "the only real impact the new Guidance will have will be to scare business owners from ever conducting criminal background checks. . . . The Guidance tells them that they are taking a tremendous risk if they do."

If a background check discloses a criminal offense, the EEOC expects a company to do an intricate "individualized assessment" that will somehow prove that it has a "business necessity" not to hire the ex-offender (or that his offense disqualifies him for a specific job). Former EEOC General Counsel Donald Livingston, in testimony in December to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, warned that employers could be considered guilty of "race discrimination if they choose law abiding applicants over applicants with criminal convictions" unless they conduct a comprehensive analysis of the ex-offender's recent life history.

It is difficult to overstate the EEOC's zealotry on this issue. The agency is demanding that one of Mr. Livingston's clients—the Freeman Companies, a convention and corporate events planner—pay compensation to rejected job applicants who lied about their criminal records.

The biggest bombshell in the new guidelines is that businesses complying with state or local laws that require employee background checks can still be targeted for EEOC lawsuits. This is a key issue in a case the EEOC commenced in 2010 against G4S Secure Solutions after the company refused to hire a twice-convicted Pennsylvania thief as a security guard.

G4S provides guards for nuclear power plants, chemical plants, government buildings and other sensitive sites, and it is prohibited by state law from hiring people with felony convictions as security officers. But, as G4S counsel Julie Payne testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights this past December, the EEOC insists "that state and local laws are pre-empted by Title VII" and is pressuring the company "to defend the use of background checks in every hiring decision we have made over a period of decades."

The EEOC's new regime leaves businesses in a Catch-22. As Todd McCracken of the National Small Business Association recently warned: "State and federal courts will allow potentially devastating tort lawsuits against businesses that hire felons who commit crimes at the workplace or in customers' homes. Yet the EEOC is threatening to launch lawsuits if they do not hire those same felons."

At the same time that the EEOC is practically rewriting the law to add "criminal offender" to the list of protected groups under civil-rights statutes, the agency refuses to disclose whether it uses criminal background checks for its own hiring. When EEOC Assistant Legal Counsel Carol Miaskoff was challenged on this point in a recent federal case in Maryland, the agency insisted that revealing its hiring policies would violate the "governmental deliberative process privilege."

The EEOC is confident that its guidance will boost minority hiring, but studies published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum and the Journal of Law and Economics have found that businesses are much less likely to hire minority applicants when background checks are banned. As the majority of black and Hispanic job applicants have clean legal records, the new EEOC mandate may harm the very groups it purports to help.

Naturally, the EEOC will have no liability for any workplace trouble that results from its new hiring policy. But Americans can treat ex-offenders humanely without giving them legal advantages over similar individuals without criminal records. The EEOC's new regulatory regime is likely to chill hiring across the board and decrease opportunities for minority applicants.

Mr. Bovard is the author, most recently, of a new e-book memoir, "Public Policy Hooligan."

A version of this article appeared February 15, 2013, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Perform Criminal Background Checks at Your Peril.

Mac

[UncaBuffalo]

From the NW RSS

http://stream.marketwatch.com/story/markets/SS-4-4/SS-4-21600/

Mac

I had to double-check and make sure you hadn't linked me to The Onion... 

[RDTroja]

From the NW RSS

http://stream.marketwatch.com/story/markets/SS-4-4/SS-4-21600/

Mac

Bureaucratic Government ineptitude at its finest.

[theldron]

Thats astonishing.

[QCguy]

Two answers to the original post. 
1.    Don't talk about it at the original interview unless directly asked about it.  Don't you ask about either.  "My cousin wanted this job but he was in jail, how would that affect his chances?" 
2.    When it comes time to do the personal history questionnaire, be honest, painfully honest.  Have the court/arrest/jail/rehabilitation dates, case numbers, jursidictions, etc with you.  They will do a real record search on you, going back forever.

[Marlin]

@ hydrodave:  Off topic but oh well.

      Ronnie talked a good sound bite,  but this is from the CATO Institute's web page on Limiting Government:   "Reagan failed to radically reduce the size of government. The 1981 budget eliminated one program: the Comprehensive Employment Training Act of 1974, a public sector employment boondoggle that had grown rapidly under Carter... On May 20, 1981, with Reagan at the peak of his popularity, a Republican Senate and the Democratic-controlled House approved resolutions rebuking Reagan's Social Security proposals. The administration backed off. A little over a week had passed from proposal to retreat..."

    But the next paragraph is great:
Reagan failed to radically cut back the federal establishment because American government is biased against big changes. All three branches of government must agree to changes in the status quo. The most crucial parts of Reagan's coalition in Congress had programs to protect. Conservative Democrats were willing to cut government spending except for farm subsidies, water projects, and the military. Liberal Republicans supported cuts except in transportation, fuel assistance, and education.

We now have Conservative Republicians supporting farm subsides and the military, and Liberal Democrates supporting education.

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